


Strangers

by FlorarenaKitasatina



Category: Little Buster Q, Terraria
Genre: Action/Adventure, Alternate Universe, Crossover, Crossover whose other material is barely translated, Crossover with an obscure Japanese game
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-09-08
Updated: 2015-09-11
Packaged: 2018-04-19 19:02:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 7,140
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4757468
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FlorarenaKitasatina/pseuds/FlorarenaKitasatina
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Garrett was a simple man who lived a simple life: defend his cottage, forage for food, sleep; the works. When a stranger gets attacked by a king slime, he finds that the guest is looking for his friends. Determined to help the lad he saved, he offers to help him find those he traversed with.</p><p>But the man with the bow soon learns it won't be so simple, especially when he's not the only sod who just so happens to find this out.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. King Slime

**Author's Note:**

> **This is a crossover with an obscure Japanese game by the title of Little Buster Q, which was barely translated to English. Thus, I will not include character tags corresponding to the characters from that game as of yet. Be warned. I will only use one character tag for the moment, but I will add more as the story progresses. Also, like _Whirlwind of Turnabout_ , I will make the chapters gradually longer, but it will take a bit because the characters have to be introduced separately. Yes, this was intended.**

Slowly, the sun rose, painting a forest of green with vibrant sheens of gold. Bunnies began hopping around the pine trees, squirrels scampered up the oak, and birds flitted about whilst singing without a care. Round slimes of blues and greens with a few purples scattered here and there bounced merrily in the undergrowth almost as if sentient. Nearby was a woodland clearing with a fairly small cottage, and from the door that opened strode a five-foot-seven man with a t-shirt, jeans, and messy brown hair. Laden on his back were a bow, a quiver full of arrows, and an axe.

The man breathed deeply, enjoying the scent of pine and flowers that wafted to his nose. He turned around and closed the door to his cottage before walking into the woodland, humming a merry tune as he scanned the trees. It took him about fifteen to twenty minutes to find a dense part of the forest. A smile came onto his face as he saw a slime pass by, but the man soon frowned once he noticed that this slime had something embedded in its gelatinous frame.

A mysterious sword, one with a blue hilt adorned with a violet, round gemstone and handguard that had a green-edged blade. Three light purple protrusions were on the dull side, likely rings to strap onto a body. It was a weapon of medium length. The man approached the slime and, once he was close enough, grabbed the blade and yanked it out.

The slime that had the sword stopped bouncing for a moment before jumping high into the air above the lad, and it would’ve collided with his head had he not used the weapon to slice it in two.

Nearby bushes rustled violently before a bunny and a squirrel lept out, both darting past the man and deeper into the woods as if for dear life. Then the earth started shaking; the tremors were soft at first. Gradually, they grew more and more violent until the man (who was now clinging to a tree for all he was worth) heard the sound of falling trees and birds flying away, squawking in panic.

Amidst all of this, he heard someone shouting. “Get away from me!” the unseen owner cried from a distance. “Get away, you big blob of jelly!”

Another tremor shook the forest, and more trees snapped and fell, their thuds echoing all the way to the skies. The man let go of the trunk he held onto and grabbed his bow and some arrows, the other hand still firmly clasping the sword’s handle.

Whatever was going on, it wasn’t good.

The owner of the voice cried, but their protests had been quickly silenced. A tense trepidation enveloped the woodland, gripping all in an uneasy tranquility. For a moment or so, not even the earth or the trees planted in its soil moved.

Next thing the man knew, more trees fell very close by, the resounding thuds momentarily deafening him and nearly forcing him to drop his weapons. It was then he saw what had been causing all of this: a gargantuan blue slime, nearly double the size of his small cottage, was jumping about with some kind of golden, gem-encrusted crown on its head. Looking closer, the armed lad spotted someone trapped inside this big blue mass, and it looked like a teenage boy. He couldn’t tell all that well because the sorry bastard was struggling to get out.

The trapped person’s struggles were quickly growing feeble, and the man who had the bow loaded a few arrows into the drawstring whilst juggling the sword.

He took aim, closing one eye and sticking his tongue just a bit. Making sure not to aim towards the lad, he waited for a moment to see if the trapped bastard was still alive.

The sod, in an act of defiance against their captor, flailed an arm wildly in the blue goo.

The arrow was fired, whistling through the air before slamming into the gelatinous body of the behemoth. The projectile went in deep, just inches from the stranger’s head. The beast somehow let out a roar and violently expelled its captive, turning tail and bouncing away madly. The man rushed over to the slime-covered person, who was now coughing out goo and gasping for air. Beyond what gel clung to him, he could now make out the person’s features.

It was a teenage boy sporting a green hoodie and grey pants, with purple fingerless gloves adorning his hands. His emerald green hair cascaded over half his face like one end of a crescent moon, with small bangs adorning the other side. The back of his neck had tufts of more hair, and all of said hair was messy and goo-coated.

“Thanks for--” the teen wheezed, taking a moment to spit out more blue gunk, “--saving me.”

“No problem,” the man nodded, patting the boy on his back. He glanced around the woods, noticing all of the fallen trees and the traces of gunk that adorned them. “Listen, it’s not safe here. Let’s head to my cottage.”

“Where’s--” the boy coughed again, expelling a big wad of jelly from his mouth, “--that?”

“Can ya walk?” the man asked, patting the stranger’s backside again.

“Barely,” came the weakened reply. The boy looked at his savior, his visible green eye flickering with worry before he forced a smile onto his face. “My name is--” he turned away to violently cough again for a moment, “--Nagare. What’s your’s?”

“I’m Garrett,” the man nodded, wrapping an arm around the teen and helping him stand, finding that the lad was almost as tall as he was. It was difficult, since he had a sword and an axe and a bow and arrows in a quiver, but he managed it in the end. The two then went back to the cottage in silence, save for Nagare hacking and wheezing on occasion. The trip took thirty minutes, and the forest was once more blanketed by the chirping of birds and chit-chat of squirrels.

Once they arrived, the boy had stopped coughing up goo, and now that he had cleared his lungs it was time to clear his mind. He went over what had transpired so far in his head: he was swallowed by a big blob, saved by a near-complete stranger out of the blue, and now he was at said stranger’s house, which was built of oak logs. Garrett opened the door and helped the teen inside, and it was quite a cozy place. There was an oven, some chopped logs, a table and chair and two empty beds.

Garrett let the boy go, and watched as he sauntered over to one of the beds. Immediately, it was clear something was wrong: the green teen was dragging one foot and putting more weight on the other. “How’s your leg?” he asked, worry tinging his voice.

“It hurts like hell,” Nagare answered, almost forcing himself on one of the beds. He turned so he could face the ceiling and sighed. “By the way, Garrett, have you seen my sword?” he asked, frowning. “I stabbed it in a wad of jelly earlier and didn’t think the big wad would come after me.”

“Green edge, blue hilt, three light purple half-rings on the dull side?” the man asked, quirking a brow.

“Yeah, that one,” the teen nodded.

“Well, I found the wad of goo you stabbed with it, and took the blade out,” the brown-haired man nodded and put his stuff down before moving the table close to the teen and putting the sword on top of the wooden frame. “King slimes don’t take kindly to their babies being stabbed.”

“So that’s why I was jumped,” the teen dryly chuckled, looking at his savior with another forced smile.

Garrett pulled up the chair and sat next to the boy. “Tell me a bit about yourself and how you got here,” he stated, curiosity having been aroused.

“I have four pals, sometimes a pain in the ass, but they’re good friends,” the teen began, his forced smile fading a bit. “We were sent by some people who found new lands and wanted them charted and colonized, right? Well, we were stupid enough to go by boat.”

“What happened after that?” the man asked, blinking.

“We got attacked by some...thing. It moved so fast all I can tell you about it was it was teal and three times as big as the boat,” Nagare answered, shaking his head as his smile fully faded. “Woke up on a beach, and my friends were nowhere to be found. Being my dumbass self, I went and searched for them and found a forest,” he finished with a heavy sigh.

“Was it just you five on that boat?” Garrett questioned, a shudder running down his spine.

“Just us. The charter groups had no more than ten people per group,” the teen answered.

“Damn. Once you get better, we’ll search for them, okay?” the man proposed, placing a hand on the teen’s shoulder.

“There’s a chance they could have died,” the teen pointed out before letting a genuine smile grace his face, “but it’s not likely. They’re armed--they have a fighting chance.”

“I’ll take that as a yes. Now, stay put while I get food, okay?” Garrett asked before standing up and grabbing his bow, quiver, and axe.

“A man can’t move if he’s worn out and has a bad leg,” Nagare teased with a grin.

“Alright,” Garrett nodded. Soon, he was out of the cottage and into the wilderness again, making sure to close the door behind him. The man weaved around the trees, whistling a merry tune all the while.

\---

Sunset was fast fleeting, and only now did Garrett return to the cottage with some fresh-killed rabbits, gaping holes in their heads indicating they’d been shot with arrows. He was worried about his guest. Was he asleep? Still alive? Or did the king slime come back and eat him?

Nah, that last one wouldn’t have been possible; the cottage did not have any traces of goo on its wood planks.

Slowly opening the door with his foot, he peeked inside. The teen was on the bed fast asleep.

Which was good. He needed to rest. Garrett silently entered the one-room house and gingerly closed the door behind him, putting down everything but the rabbits and then moving to the oven to start skinning, de-boning, and chopping tonight’s dinner up. There were four medium-sized rabbits in total; a decent meal for two out here in these woods.

Eventually, he began cooking the rabbit meat and organs (save the intestines and stomachs of the critters, which were tossed outside with their bladders) when he heard his guest groaning.

“Ungh, what time is it?” Nagare croaked, his eyelids slowly opening.

“Almost dark,” Garrett answered. “I got dinner cooking.”

“Great. Hadn’t ate a morsel since the boat crashed,” the teen grinned, stretching his arms and sitting up.


	2. Fallen Star

Night was well underway, and several moans echoed into the dim sky throughout a desert. Moans of anguish, pain, and anger produced by a wailing symphony of hoarse voices. The crescent moon was a bloody red, barely providing enough light for one to see.

“Get away, you freaks!” a person cried in a masculine voice, and soon after they shouted several gunshots went off. These... _things_ fell like dominoes; at this time one would have trouble telling what exactly they were. Some of them floated about and exploded, and others simply collapsed almost like they were human. More creatures congregated as if they had but one purpose.

To chase whatever was hollering and producing gunshots. The person was running for dear life, glancing around hastily as they fled to make sure those freaks wouldn’t get a chance to lunge. More gunshots echoed into the night, and more creatures toppled and exploded. Unfortunately, something long was trailing behind the person, and one of the things managed to grab hold of it and stop the sorry sap right in their tracks.

“Hey! Lemme go!” the person yelled, pointing something at the thing that was quickly approaching them. Another gunshot went off, and only then did the freak let go. More gunshots resounded from afar, and the lad could see a faint light in the distance.

Safety.

The person pawed themself before cursing. “Shit, just one clip left,” they murmured, putting that into whatever it was they’d been holding. The thing was pointed in the air, just as another floating thing came into the dimmed view.

But before the person could shoot, the thing exploded and a star-shaped object landed near their feet. It was glowing with enough light to reveal the lad’s location. A hand marked with a grey fingerless glove grabbed the star and lifted it out of the sand, and the sap--another teenage boy--cursed because now _more_ freaks were gaining ground.

Putting the star under something that was on his head, he turned and bolted towards the dim light in the distance. More gunshots echoed from that area, and it seemed that the light was getting closer than he imagined.

What if it was another person? After a few meters, the teen stopped again and glanced around.

It would take a while for those things to catch up. Taking the thing off his head and grabbing the star, he waved it around like it was a lantern of sorts.

Damn was this star bright. He noticed the light coming closer and put the thing on his head again. Now, he could barely see another person quickly running right towards him. It was a five-foot-nine man with a battered longcoat, dark-skinned with black and fuzzy hair. In one hand was a torch; in the other was a handgun. Likewise, the dark man could see a five-foot-four teen sporting reddish-orange clothes and a blue baseball cap, with messy red bangs brushed to the sides of his head and--for some strange reason--more long hair tied low at the back with a white ribbon. In the teen’s hands were the aforementioned star and a strange, customized red gun shaped to be more like a miniature cannon with two barrels one atop the other, and the top one housed a peculiar golden orb that the other barrel directly beneath lacked.

As soon as they were mere feet from each other, the two pointed their weapons at one another.

“Who are you?” the dark man asked with a scowl.

“I should be asking ya the same damned thing,” the teen scoffed, red eyes glinting with anger. His eyes averted as the groans of those things once more grew louder all around the two. “You on your last clip of ammo?” the boy questioned, glancing around to see more of those things coming closer.

“No,” the dark man answered, shaking his head. “Let’s get going.”

The teen nodded and watched the man dart off with his torch in hand before following, clutching both weapon and impromptu light source in hand. A cold chill blew past them, barely catching the end of the boy’s waist-length ponytail. The duo kept running, both breathing heavily as their lungs began to burn. After a good fifteen minutes or so (counting brief stops to catch their breaths), the two found a cavern lit with torches, barricaded with rocks to the point only one person could enter at a time.

The man helped get his fellow gunman into the barricaded place before clambering in himself. There was little more than a bed here, unless one counted the many boxes that littered the place. Some boxes had straps attached to their frames, some did not have straps.

The boy put the star in a pocket on his red pair of shorts and sighed. “Let’s try this again,” he said simply.

The dark man sat down cross-legged, setting the torch down away from both himself and the boxes. “Dante,” he scoffed. “You strike me as odd with that long hair…”

“Rekka,” the teen replied, also sitting down on the stone floor. He took the star out of his pocket and began to marvel at it. “How is it that I can touch this fallen star and not get burned?”

“I’ve had one for a while,” Dante began, “and I’ve been wondering that myself.”

“Hey, at least it makes a great lantern,” the teen stated with a grin worming its way onto his face.

“That much is true,” the man nodded in understanding. “So, what brought you here?”

“Ever hear of the things going on overseas?” the teen asked, setting his gun down onto the stone floor.

Immediately, Dante scowled. “I wish I hadn’t,” he said bluntly. “Those fools don’t know what they’re doing.”

“I can see why you’d say that,” Rekka conceded bitterly, “especially since I wound up separated from my pals. I hope none of them got killed.”

“Wait--you had friends?” the dark man asked, eyes widening.

“Yeah. We came by boat,” was the answer. “Five of us--just us, and our weapons. Something lept out of the water and I swear it snapped the boat in half. Next thing I knew, I woke up on a beach and found myself alone,” he added, turning to glare at their exit out. Moans and groans were now resounding just outside, but their owners had no chance of getting inside. “And as soon as the moon rose, I was swarmed by those...whatever those things are. I don't know how in god's name they found me, but they did.”

“Zombies and demon eyes,” Dante sighed, his remark causing the teen to look at him with widening eyes.

“Come again?” Rekka responded, quirking a brow.

“Zombies. The walking dead that eat the living,” the dark man clarified, “and demon eyes...are just eyeballs that somehow fly. I do not know how that works, but my best guess would be it has to do with something supernatural.”

The crimson-clad boy thought all of this over for a moment. “Makes sense, now that I dwell on it,” he conceded. “Have ya seen werewolves, then?”

Dante donned a lopsided smile and a faint blush on his cheeks. “Shot plenty of the bastards. Only ones I didn’t shoot were two that I found...er, making werewolf babies,” he sighed, still having that goofy grin. The teen blinked and tried not to smile, but was failing at it. “Hey, nobody wants to die while doing the dirty, right?”

“I sure as hell wouldn’t,” the boy answered, chuckling soon afterwards. He then broke out laughing as the image of what he thought would be the look on Dante’s face as he came upon the copulating lycanthropes was painted in his mind. And he imagined that expression being completely priceless. The dark-skinned man began laughing as well, and for a few moments all the two were doing was just laughing their asses off.

After they had calmed down, Dante looked at the teen and his face hardened into a glare. “Do you plan on going back overseas?” he asked.

“No--not without my friends,” Rekka answered, his face also hardening. “I know damn well what will happen if I go there with my tail between my legs while my hands are empty. The others _don’t_ \--we have to find them as soon as possible.”

The dark-skinned man nodded and looked at one of the many boxes that were in the cramped room, eyeballing some in particular that had the straps attached to their cubic frames. “We can’t do that staying here,” he pointed out begrudgingly, turning back to the teen. “What caliber does your handgun take?”

“Just about any handgun caliber. I built this thing myself with illegal parts--another reason I ain’t going back overseas,” the teen said flatly before frowning. “And I don’t have much room to carry more than ten damn clips, unless you somehow strap one of those boxes to my back.”

Dante rose a hand and slowly pointed at one of the containers, this one a vibrant bronze and equipped with a thick leather strap. The boy followed where the finger was pointing at and blinked. “Ammo box. Always keep a spare one with me--better to have it and not need it than to need it and not have it,” he stated.

“True,” the teen agreed, standing up and picking up his gun while placing the star in his pocket. “Does it also have a holster? My hand’s hurting.”

“I take it you went trigger happy?” the man in the coat questioned, a bemused smirk framing itself upon his visage.

“On my last clip,” the crimson-clad boy sighed.

“Then you were really lucky this night. Y’know...I was thinking of leaving this cave for good. Been cooped up too long in this desert,” Dante stated, standing up himself. He approached the teen and put a hand on his shoulder. “Let’s stock up and hit the road.”

The teen nodded and peeked outside, and thanks to the light of the waking dawn, he could clearly see the rotted forms of the zombies who were still outside trying to get in, as well as a glimpse of a floating eyeball or two. However, what rendered him speechless was, as the dawn rapidly approached, one by one the undead monsters dispersed. “What’s with those bozos? They know damn well we’re in here,” the boy scoffed.

“Even the undead need to rest. I like to think of them as flesh-eating vampires,” the man answered, opening all of the boxes and stocking as much ammo as he could into two boxes with straps.

“Fair enough,” Rekka nodded, turning to Dante just as he finished filling the two boxes to the brim with ammo. “What’s in the other boxes?”

“Arrows and crossbow bolts. Useless for guns,” the man replied with a shrug before getting up with two boxes in tow and having the strap of one slung around the teen. He clambered out of the hole the zombies couldn’t get through, helping his fellow gunsman out of the same hole once he was outside.

“So, where do we go?” the boy questioned, looking towards the many dunes dotting the vast and sandy desert landscape.

“Wherever the wind blows, Rekka,” Dante began, “wherever the wind blows.”


	3. Where To?

Open plains stretched out, graced by the midday light of the sun. Sunflowers cropped up here, lillies sprouted there, and the grass was as green as the leaves of the sparse pine trees. A person was walking through the plains, a five-foot-three male teenager clad in a yellow shirt and shorts, short brown hair wafting messily about in a coming breeze. His rectangular glasses glinted as he angled his head, brown irises not-so-hidden behind the clear frames. On his back was a quiver of arrows alongside a small backpack of stuff, and in his hands was a crossbow with a golden sheen that had a greenish orb adorning the butt of the handle.

The boy paused, scanning the landscape before him, looking for things that were out of place. In the distance, he could barely make out withered trees with greying purple leaves, irratical structures, and bizarre masses flying about.

A good distance away from that, surrounded by sunflowers, was a small wooden house. The teen smirked, slowly walking towards that single structure of civilization. Like a predator stalking his prey, he was cautious, silent, and ready to sprint when the perfect opportunity presented itself.

He paused again, barely making out a person opening the door to the house and going inside. As if something was chasing him, he started running and did not stop--not until he was at the front door a good twenty minutes later, with a few rest breaks in between.

And he arrived just in time to butt right into the house’s inhabitant as she was leaving, startling her in the process. The person, a rather well-endowed, five-foot-nine nurse with blond hair and blue eyes, quickly reached into a weapon sheath attached to her exposed mid-thigh and pulled out a dagger whose blade was coated with some sort of green gunk. “This knife is coated in bonafide poison, do NOT make me use it!” she hissed.

The response she got was having the crossbow pointed at her face. “Yeah, and I can snipe you from three hillsides away,” the teen growled, a smug smirk worming its way onto his visage.

The nurse flinched, but she did not put her weapon back in its sheath; given the here and now, that would’ve been an act of cowardice. “Who’re you and what do you want?” she snarled, her hand twitching like she was going to throw her supposedly poisoned dagger.

To her wide-eyed state of shock, the boy before her lowered his crossbow after a few tense moment of silence. “Name’s Tenmei, and I’m looking for some people,” he answered flatly. “I was supposed to be part of a charter crew, but there are some of the higher-ups’ orders I ain’t going to follow through.”

“What would one of those orders be?” the nurse questioned, slowly putting her dagger back in its sheath.

“Kill any persons not part of the charter crew on sight, including and not limited to traitors,” the teen scoffed, shaking his head. “Hey, speaking of traitors, I think I recognize you…” he trailed off, blinking.

The nurse flinched again. “How so?” she asked, an eye twitching.

“Before me and my charter crew were shipped off, wanted posters of you were plastered all over the damn place. It even had your name on it,” Tenmei sighed, closing his eyes for a moment. “Your name’s Claire, isn’t it?”

The woman nodded when the teen opened his eyes to look at her once more. “Yes,” she murmured. “And I recognize you; you’re a member of the Special Task Force.”

“Was,” Tenmei quickly corrected. “Bear in mind that I’m not gunning you to oblivion and pumping your body full of crossbow bolts. In fact, the only things I’ll shoot down are those flying eyeballs and the fucking zombies that roam around at night.”

Claire sighed. “So, who’re you looking for?” she inquired, beckoning the teen indoors.

“The other members of the Task Force. I’m pretty sure you’ve seen them too?” the teen frowned, walking into the house and watching his makeshift host close the door.

“No; just heard the rumors before I was declared a wanted woman,” the nurse replied, shaking her head. “You’re about the only Task Force member I’ve seen in person.”

The boy nodded. “Eh--” he was interrupted when a strange buzzing noise came from his small backpack. “Oh, what do they want now?” he groaned, putting his crossbow down, undoing the pack, putting that on the floor, opening it, and digging around in its contents until he procured a walkie-talkie. Claire’s eyes widened as she heard garbled words come from the device.

“Lieutenant, do you copy? Do you copy, Lieutenant Tenmei?” the voice of a man asked, to which the teen replied by gently setting the device on the floor, picking up his crossbow, and pumping the damn thing with three consecutive bolts. Within moments, the accursed rectangular machine ceased making any and all noises (unless having the bolts removed and the frame meeting with the boy’s heel afterwards counted.)

Claire stood there, eyes wide and pupils shrunk. She watched as the teen closed his pack and wrapped it back around his body, only moving once he put his hand on her shoulder. “You’re now...you’re now a wanted man,” she murmured almost as if zoning out.

“That makes two of us,” the teen conceded. “Pack your things; we have to go.”

“Where?” the nurse frowned, blinking and looking at the teen like she was confused before looking around her house. She spotted a small backpack of her own on the floor, and some nearby medicines and rolls of gauze in boxes lined on a shelf. The woman sprinted to them and quickly began cramming bottles, vials, and small boxes into the pack until the whole shelf was emptied. She then closed her pack and slung it onto her back.

“Y’know, that’s a pretty good question,” Tenmei admitted sheepishly, a grin worming its way on his face. “I hardly know this place--why don’t you lead the way?”

“But what will we do when night falls? What if another blood moon rises?” Claire sighed, crossing her arms.

“And...what exactly happens when the blood moon rises?” the teen asked, a brow arched.

“It makes the undead far more aggressive than usual. They get stronger too,” the nurse shook her head. “I don’t have anything to barricade my front door with.”

Tenmei was still grinning. “Then we find something,” he retorted. “Something heavy. Either that or find another place to stay for the night.”

Claire shook her head. “All I have is the medicine shelf, which I’ve just emptied,” she sighed. “That, and my knife.”

The teen glanced around the house and noticed that there was little more than the aforementioned shelf and a sleeping bag. Discounting the radio he smashed with his foot, there really was nothing in this house. He turned back to the woman, his grin fading. “How the hell do you _live_ out here?” he found himself questioning.

The nurse walked up to the sleeping bag and began to roll it up. “To be honest, I’ve been very careful since my first weeks here. Only reason I have a knife was because a man with a blue feathered hat gave it to me and the poison to dip the blade in,” she answered with a sheepish grin. “The medicines and gauze I brought here myself in case of emergencies,” she added, wrapping straps around the rolled-up portable blanket, tying the knots firmly before slinging that onto her back as well.

Tenmei sighed to himself. “So,” he began as the nurse approached the door where he was still idling at, “where to?”

“You’ve seen flying creatures in the distance, right? Above some odd shapes?” Claire asked, to which her guest nodded. “I call that area the dead plains. I don’t care how well-equipped you are; we’re _not_ going there.”

“And why not?” the brown-haired boy asked, quirking a brow.

“It’s so riddled with such big holes I’m thinking someone ran through it with an excess of dynamite and free time. That, and those same holes are occupied by monsters worse than zombies,” the woman replied, her smile fading. “They swarm you, they fly, and they’re like something out of a lunatic’s wet dream.”

For a moment, the teen was silent. “I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt,” he murmured. “Now then: where to?”

“I think we should head for the nearby desert,” the nurse stated.

“If we’re going to a desert,” Tenmei began, “then where the fuck are we gonna get water?”


	4. Dead Plains

Daylight was fleeting in an area covered with decaying purple grass, rising soil stalagmites and littered by large, circular chasms. Things that would be best described as floating chunks of rotted flesh and bones with mouths and demonic-looking eyeballs drifted as if without purpose. As the sun retreated, the things began to congregate around a single area, only to be stricken down from the sky by a small and round object that retracted to its source.

A light came to life as the night came; the source was a flame radiating from the tip of a torch. Holding it was a young, five-foot-five teenage girl sporting an orange jacket and grey shorts. She had long purple hair, and the bangs that crested over her forehead were tufted like the feathery down of baby birds, with some of said bangs protruding more on the right side than the left. Her purple eyes scanned the bleak world, narrowed as if in annoyance when groans started to pierce the silence.

“Great going, Yuuki,” she scowled, taking a moment to hit herself on the forehead with a hand sporting a black glove (with an azure gem circling the wrist of this hand by way of chain bracelet) that had a grey yoyo with a purple center dangling on one of her fingers by its string, “you went and got separated from the others, and now you’re going to die. This just could not get any better, could it?”

A rotting flesh-thing came close to the teen, just enough for her to see it in the light of her torch. Immediately, its largest eye got hit by the thrown yoyo, and the monster recoiled and screamed in pain before dropping to the ground like a fly as the weapon that hit it retracted back to its owner’s hand.

The girl looked up at the sky and spotted the rising crescent moon before feeling something grab tightly onto her shoulder and hearing the sound of a rattling chain. She reacted immediately, hitting the thing with her torch and then with her yoyo to get it to let go.

A zombiefied man was looking up at her with nothing for a face except a skull, and it growled at her as it stumbled away from the assault. There was a peculiar shackle adorning its left hand; the same one it grabbed her with, in fact.

“Oh look, something I can set on fire,” the teen murmured to herself before letting an unnerving, manic smirk creep up on her lips. This smile faded, however, when she realized those rotting flesh-things were still hovering about and would probably see the zombie if she had set it alight. “Yeah, not gonna take the risk,” she snarled as she then tackled the zombie, knocking it onto its back before getting up faster than it could and stomping on its head until the cranium broke into pieces.

The girl began to wander about in this accursed place, only stopping a few moments later when she came across a chasm. She peered inside the hole for a minute, a shudder running up her spine when something in it growled. The noise sounded like something a dragon would have produced if it was asleep, a deep rumbling snarl that shook the very earth surrounding this gargantuan hole. She backed away quickly, turning eastward and resuming with her trek.

Yuuki paused again a good ten minutes later, when she heard someone--perhaps something--screaming in the distance. She glanced around, trying to determine where this new sound was coming from, only to spot two more zombies shambling towards her. This undead pair consisted of a woman who had a wad of goo encasing its head like an overgrown fishbowl, and the other had tree limbs sticking out of its body.

The decaying lady rose a peculiar stick into the air as if it was a crowbar, and the teen reacted quickly: she hit the hand holding it with her thrown yoyo, knocking it out of the rotting appendage and snapping a few of the zombie’s fingers in the process. Upon retracting the weapon, the teen then lunged at the woman, hitting her with the torch.

Big mistake. The second the flame came near the undead duo, both lit up in a fiery inferno, forcing her to back off before she could singe herself. She felt the ground rumbling, turning around just in time to see a large snake-like creature erupt from the greyish-purple soil and lunge at the burning zombies, eating them both as if it hadn’t had a meal in years. It had one eye on its head and a pair of sick mandibles, and much of its body was segmented like that of a worm’s.

Once it was done feasting on the zombies, the worm then turned its head towards Yuuki, its mandibles opening up to reveal a mouth lined with more teeth than she could count. It roared, the resulting noise sounding like a cross between a lion and a chalkboard after nails scratched its surface.

The teen paled a bit, briefly paralyzed as the worm moved uncomfortably close to her; its face inches apart from her own. The two stared at one another for a moment or so before the worm’s body began to encircle her. The girl slung her yoyo at the creature, hitting it right in its eye and causing it to howl in agony. It dove into the ground, writhing like a snake on steroids until it vanished out of sight completely.

“Alright, fuck this, I’m getting out of this hellhole,” Yuuki growled, breaking off into a sprint and narrowly avoiding more undead people that were trying to grab her. She maneuvered past monsters and chasms, ducking and sliding and side-stepping as more and more freaks started vying for and trying to nip at her flesh. Some annoying monsters got hit with the torch or the yoyo, causing them to snarl or howl as they recoiled.

Her run lasted a good ten minutes or so, but she stopped upon seeing a five-foot-eight woman with long green hair and little more than bush leaves covering her private areas getting knocked on her bare ass by a hideous monster that gave the zombies a run for their money. The monster had mandibles, spiked pedipalps, and tongues for hands, and it had feet whose talons gave them the impression of being cross-shaped. Where its knees and shoulders had been, eyeballs bulged out with sickening green veins. The most distinguishing feature this eldritch abomination had was, in place of a head and neck, a mouth splitting down its chest, protruding with teeth and an assortment of tongues.

The thing lunged an arm at the green woman, who was quick to backpedal far enough that the mouth-tipped appendage landed inches from her right foot. It found that very same limb getting a yoyo coiled around it like a very thin python with an oversized head. The monstrosity roared, one eye-shoulder averting to see where the weapon came from.

It soon found the butt of a torch meeting that same eye-shoulder, and it howled as Yuuki clambered onto the creature and gouged the eye out frantically. The purple girl moved to the other eye and began stabbing it as well, ducking under one arm-mouth and using her yoyo to pull the other one towards herself. Once the other eye-shoulder was smashed in and oozing green blood, the tied-up appendage got its first mouthful of searing hot flames, eliciting more roars from the abominable beast.

Now, she was the one yelling as the other arm-mouth grabbed her by the wrist, sinking its teeth painfully into her flesh, the tongues wrapping around in tandem with the pedipalps for an agonizing tight grip. Yuuki tried desperately to retract her yoyo, but with the monster trying to tear her torch-arm off and the fact that she had to avoid being bitten in the abdomen by that neck-maw, it was a pretty tall order to contend with.

The other woman stood up before running to the monster and jumping on its hideous frame herself. She uncoiled the yoyo for her savior and snagged the torch from her other hand, quickly jumping off the abomination and gouging the knee-eyes with the butt of the flaming stick. Once that was said and done, she shoved the fiery end of the torch down the neck-maw and caused the monster lots of pain as its insides were cooked alive.

Then, only then, did it collapse, its arm-mouth letting go of the now-bleeding teen who fell in front of the almost-naked woman.

“Fucking ow,” Yuuki groaned, clutching the wounded wrist without bothering to retract her yoyo. She winced, searing pain shooting through her nerves like it was fire. She looked at the green-haired lady and forced a smile onto her face. “Thanks for helping me,” she said simply.

The woman smiled and grabbed the teen by her good arm, almost yanking her to her feet. “Hey, I should be the one thanking you,” she replied with a genuine smile. More moans resounded in the bleak distance, and both girls glanced around, their eyes adjusting to what little light the crescent moon could provide. The almost-nudist spotted a very large tree nearby, one that had an actual door on the trunk. “That way,” she said whilst pointing at the anomaly.

The teen complied as the green lady led her to the odd tree, and it took seven minutes to get to that area. The door attached to the trunk was opened, and the two went inside to find a spiral stairway leading downwards and upwards, lit up by hanging lanterns. The duo descended down in silence, making sure to keep the door close behind them beforehand. Soon, they reached another door which was opened, revealing a quaint little room with a vine-covered loom, a chest, and a bed that was big enough to hold three people.

“Sit on the bed and let me see your wrist,” the woman frowned. Yuuki trudged to the large bed and noticed that its blanket was woven with leaves, and that the bedframe was crafted of vine-covered wood. Upon sitting on the mattress, she found there were so many leaves making its frame that some of the dead ones made a large crunch as soon as her buttocks applied pressure to them. The almost-nudist then approached the teen and unraveled her bloodied jacket sleeve. “Oh dear,” she murmured.

‘Oh dear’ was right; the wounds were deep enough anyone with functioning eyeballs could have made out the bone joint where hand and arm connected. There was also a small embedded mandible or two stuck inside, and the injuries were bleeding a lot.

“Sit still a bit; this might hurt,” the green lady sighed, moving one hand towards the wrist before jamming her fingers into one of the wounds where a mandible had been snapped off into. Yuuki suppressed the urge to cry out bloody murder, her eyes widening and teeth gritting as more pain shot through her nerves with a vengeance. The first mandible was removed quickly, and so was the other shortly thereafter. The other wounds were then checked by the woman, who thankfully found no further items lodged in the newly-created bloody orifices.

The leaf-wearing girl began chanting something in a tongue the teen could not understand, and as this happened, the wounds began to close up by themselves at such a rate the purple person in the orange jacket could not help but marvel at it in wonder. An aura formed around the wrist, forming leaves of evergreen that danced around the area until the wounds were nonexistent.

“So,” the almost-nudist began, looking at the teen with a smile, “what’s your name?”

“Yuuki,” the teen answered with a sheepish grin.

“That’s a pretty name,” the woman replied, her smile widening, “my name’s Alura.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The abomination is a fan-made monster, and honestly, I can see it being made official if the developers go along with it. http://i48.photobucket.com/albums/f241/dai-ssssss/AAaAaAA_brainsmoosh/Terraria/art/corruption-abomination.jpg


End file.
